Setting up ChatGPT ads, without surprises
This page covers the OpenAI account setup: what to have ready, permanent settings, verification and review, and where to find the Ads API key. Build your business profile, campaign plan and ad example in Serge while the review runs. Approval alone does not start your campaign: paused creation and live running have separate availability checks, and you approve the budget before running.
Serge costs CHF 9 for an eligible first month, then CHF 159 per month, including applicable VAT. Subscriptions are currently available only to Swiss residents and businesses established in Switzerland with a Swiss billing address. Ad spend is separate and paid directly to OpenAI.
One check before you start: OpenAI accepts advertisers from 52 countries, including the US and UK — this is about where your business is based, not where your ads can show.
See the full country list
Business/account country check: OpenAI accepts advertisers in the countries below. This determines whether your business can create the ads account; it is not a campaign-targeting list. If your business/account country is elsewhere, check ads.openai.com before continuing.
- Europe
- Austria · Belgium · Bulgaria · Croatia · Cyprus · Czechia · Denmark · Estonia · Finland · France · Germany · Greece · Hungary · Iceland · Ireland · Italy · Latvia · Liechtenstein · Lithuania · Luxembourg · Malta · Netherlands · Norway · Poland · Portugal · Romania · Slovakia · Slovenia · Spain · Sweden · Switzerland · United Kingdom
- Americas
- Brazil · Canada · Mexico · United States
- Asia-Pacific
- Australia · India · Japan · New Zealand · South Korea
- Middle East & Africa
- Algeria · Bahrain · Egypt · Iraq · Jordan · Kuwait · Lebanon · Morocco · Oman · Qatar · Tunisia
Have these ready
These four items help prevent common setup stalls:
- Your business registration number. In the US that's your EIN; in the UK your Companies House number. OpenAI verifies your business during signup.
- A company card. Ad spend bills to it at OpenAI directly — Serge never touches your billing.
- Your website URL — OpenAI reviews the site your ads will land on.
- A clear favicon on your site. OpenAI may request one during site review; check the current requirement in Ads Manager before submitting.
Three settings are permanent
Country, currency, and time zone are locked the moment the account is created. There is no changing them afterwards — a wrong pick means a new account.
The rules of thumb: set the country you bill from, the currency you'll be billed in, and the time zone your team works in.
Creating the account
Go to ads.openai.com and create the account with your business details. Your business should own the account and billing from the first minute. Serge works through the Ads API key you bring back, so you keep direct control and can revoke access yourself.
Business verification runs during signup, against the registration number above. OpenAI controls its timing and current state; check Ads Manager for the latest status. You can return to Serge in the meantime; your saved campaign plan remains here.
The site review
Before ads can serve, OpenAI reviews the site they land on. Many site-review causes are actionable on your side:
- OpenAI's crawler was blocked — usually bot protection or robots.txt. Allowlist it and re-request review.
- The landing page didn't load or didn't respond as a regular web page. Check the URL serves an ordinary page.
- OpenAI asked for a favicon during review. Add one that meets the current Ads Manager requirement, then re-request review.
The Ads API key
When your account exists, your Ads API key lives at ads.openai.com under Settings. Create one for the ad account and paste it into Serge's connect page. Careful: this is the Ads key from ads.openai.com — not a platform.openai.com model key.
That key lets Serge work with the ads account, including creating the paused campaign; it is not a read-only credential. No Serge user is added. Serge checks the account connection, stores the key encrypted, and loses access when you revoke it in OpenAI.
What Serge does from there
When creation is available, Serge builds the campaign, ad group and ads paused in your own account from the plan and ad example you reviewed. Your campaign workspace shows verified status and available OpenAI campaign totals. Running requires separate launch access, the required OpenAI approvals, and your explicit approval of the saved budget and currency. Available pause controls are in the same workspace. First-party measurement is optional and separate.
Ready to start? Create your Serge account and subscribe to prepare your campaign while OpenAI reviews your application. See pricing or return to the docs hub.